


Coming Through in Waves

by Mohini



Series: Ghosts [14]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU - College, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Drug Use, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self Harm, emeto, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: Once upon a time, she know whose lies she was telling. She can't even begin to sort them out now.





	Coming Through in Waves

_The child is grown,_

_The dream is gone._

_I have become comfortably numb_

  ~ Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

 

 

She’s stopped thinking of him often. More in passing than as the integral part of her everything a random guy in a group home became while they shared a wall. In the beginning, there were letters. Several when he left for basic, back when he seemed to think that ink on a page might keep her as safe as his arms around her had tried to. Then there was the one when orders came for him to leave the country. In-country, he had called it, he was going in-country. Her automatic thought was that no, he wasn’t. He was leaving the country, and very likely never coming back. It was with that letter that she stopped allowing herself to hope that he would be a part of her world beyond the already fading memories.

The final letter came with gritty sand, evidence of where he was, and more real than she was prepared to feel. There was something very final about knowing that the person she almost, sort of managed to love, from whom she felt the closest thing to safety since toddlerhood, was in the least safe place on the planet.

She’s definitely not safe now.

Signing on for extended guardianship was the only option that made any sense. She had nowhere to go. Her grades were solid enough to secure admission to a state school. Her time in care guarantee of tuition covered so long as she would let a social worker pretend to give a damn for a few more years. Whatever. Smile pretty, say the right words, and hide the vodka under the sink. No one wants to look because no one wants to see. There’s nothing to see. Just a ghost, hiding beneath a pretty face and bright red curls. She used to know whose lies she told. She doesn’t even begin to believe she can sort them out now.

Where are you from? – grew up here (sort of. If you count moved all the hell over the tri-county area until she hit the big 18 and they tossed her ass into campus housing)

What’s your major? – criminal justice and sociology (because when you know more about being fucked up than about being a person you want to study things that are as fucked as you)

What will you do with that? – law enforcement, FBI maybe (never mind that she’ll never pass a drug test before she’s a week in the ground)

Family? – parents died when I was a kid (Probably. DCBS lost track of them before she hit double digits. A bright faced brand new worker told her that might mean she could be adopted, but that was a lie. No one adopts sharp tongued, quick fisted, too old kids.)

Family. She digs through the ill-named Life Book that followed her through more homes than she can count until she finds the photo. James is all long limbs and shaggy hair, a bright smile on his lips with his arm around her shoulders. She doesn’t remember who snapped it. She doesn’t remember why she still has it. She wants to think it was intentional, some choice that she wanted to keep him close even after she lost him. That’s a lie though. She forgot about it. Nearly forgot about him. Until she didn’t. She touches a single, shaking finger to the eyes that saw through every bit of false self-assurance she tried so hard to wrap around herself when she was skinny kid with too many triggers to count and too few chemicals to dull them down.

Mmm. Chemicals. That reminds her that she’s still thinking too damn much. She takes the edge of the razor and crushes another tablet on the surface of the counter she’s sitting on a cheerfully bright red wooden stool at. It burns when she drags it into her sinuses. But the burn is familiar as a childhood cuddle toy she never owned (or lost during one of the placement changes – one of those).

Someone’s banging on the door. Probably someone who wants to bitch about something. Her loud music maybe (can anyone really play STP quietly?). But the music isn’t playing anymore. The screen of her laptop shows a conversation bubble from Pandora – are you still there? No. No she isn’t. She never was.

The door is rattling in the frame now, and she stumbles to it and yanks it open. She’d yell at the idiot who’s chosen to disturb her self-destruction, but then there are eyes that see straight through her and a muttered curse in definitely not English.

“What did you go and do?” James asks as he cups her chin in one hand (his only hand, she remembers with a foggy certainty) and tilts her face up to look at her carefully. The thought lands at that moment, a memory of tapping out an apology for missing a set meetup. She meant to tell him she needed a night to exist. Is afraid she might have written what she actually felt instead. That explains the fear in his eyes. She’s high, really, really high, but not so far gone she can’t tell that James is not pleased.

“Tasha. One question, okay?”

She nods. Wants to tease him that he’s used it up. Can’t remember how to make her lips form words. Isn’t sure her tongue can move properly anyway.

“Overdose or dumbass?”

She shrugs. It’s the wrong answer.

“Easier question. Safe?”

That one she can answer. She shakes her head, tears appearing out of nowhere and soaking her face. Not safe. Not even a little bit.

“One more. Gonna wake up?”

Yeah, she will. She’s not that high. She’s high, very much so, but this isn’t any worse than she’s done every other time she needs a minute to stop feeling so damn much. She’s used to sleeping it off on the floor, or the bed, or wherever else she lands when her brain calls it for the night. Once upon a time, she was used to sleeping it off under his watchful gaze.

She nods.

“I’m staying until you do.”

It barely registers that he’s guiding her away from the door. She’s half aware of the change in position from on her feet to not as he settles her on the couch, and some part of her clocks that she’s on her side in case she needs to hurl. There’s a creak of springs, and she sees a blurry outline of James shaped human in the chair next to the couch.

She drifts, colors and shapes and light and blankness. Enough valium in her veins to dull any attempt her brain might make at being scared of where she’s put herself. Enough alcohol alongside it that she doesn’t care. Enough pretty tablets with little shapes pressed in the chalky surface that her skin is practically an independent sentient being, aware of even the air currents of the room.

Bitter. Something bitter and sour and, oh, James is rolling her over and telling her to cough it up. She must be sick. Must have caught some stupid stomach something at school. But, she’s not a kid. Doesn’t feel feverish, just, oh, another hiccup and there is liquid in her mouth, on her chin, crinkling in a plastic lined trash can she doesn’t remember putting anywhere near her.

There are still colors and sounds and she can feel the soft damp cloth James wipes her face with in a way that is almost transcendental. Definitely still high beyond reason, she muses, and then the cool cloth swipes over her skin again and she shivers.

“You’re still a fucking nightmare sometimes.”

“Mmm. Had better nightmares,” she whispers. She doesn’t know if the words make it out of her head, but they feel witty and fun and she hopes they have.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
